Radeon 9800XT 256MB

This guy multi-tasks hard. Like, so frickin hard. Your "ALT+D,F, F" Excel shortcut is like nothing to him! He spits on your Outlook 'Ctrl+Shift+M' and your regular 'Windows Key + M'. Uhhh, Alt-Tab? Who the efff are you thinking you can even mention Alt-Tab around this guy? Come.....On....Alt-Tab. Can you even conceive of looking so hard while simultaneously crunching all of those numbers in the background?? His built-in vicious accounting stamp and huge Fist/Pen are just waiting to put a fat X on your W-2.

He's kind of like Inspector Gadget in that regard - but, like, imagine if Inspector Gadget had slain the Archangels Gabriel and Tyriel in the Chrono-Ether, eons before the time of mankind - indeed - before the genesis of time itself and stolen their very Halos and forged from them an exo-suit of Indestructible Destruction and Amortization of Unused Assets.

Oh man. That art is intense. It took me 43 hours to write this post because I spent the first 42 of those hours cowering under my desk. Every time I peek out around my cube a MASSIVE steel fist seemingly appears from nowhere and threatens to smash my face in!

Ahhhhhhhh my beautiful face! Gahhh! Oh. Shit. There isn't a huge deadly Pen/Fist flying at me! Its just this epic Robotic Angel of Death on this box art. Whew. The only way to successfully write this post was to keep the blogpost-typing window (that's blog-tech nerd for a window where you type your blog post) scrolled way down so that I don't catch any glimpses of this terribly realistic assault.

Let's do the score quick because I'm about to have a breakdown:

+1 Robot
+1 Fictitious Monster (hes obviously more than just a robot!)
+1 Armor
+3 Weapons (Scyth, Spike Pen, Stamp of Death)
+1 Energy Burst (Shoulder lamps and gleams)
+1 Clouds
+3 X's

Total: 11

What??? This doesn't defeat that lame Minotaur Ruben?? I'm petitioning the board.

I really wanted to give points for the Matrix-Style numbers floating around everywhere, but I'm the Scalia of Videocard box art - letter of the law, not intent. You might say "but couldn't they be interpreted as 'wireframe' or 'energy'??? Yeah, and the right to privacy is the right to abortion you baby killer.

ATI Radeon X800XL

Wow. The crazy bovine-phobia the artist behind this box suffers from is practically off the scale.

Now, I know some of you reading this are gonna say "no, that's just a minotaur." -- and to address that, I've created this short play starring me, as myself, and you as the whiny mythology nerd.

ACT I
Me: Holy shit, look at that crazy vampire cow dude!
You: That's just a minotaur.
Me: Minnow what? Shut up or I'll sic a crazy vampire cow warrior on you.
You: You have no idea what a minotaur is.
Me: You're a minotaur! I'll minotaur you! Your mom's a minotaur!
You: I'm done talking to you now.
Me: Yeah, you better run Señor Minotaur!
You: Your vocabulary is nothing short of amazing.
Me: OH NOS!! A GAZEBO!

[At this point a large and angry gazebo crashes on to the stage and eats your stack of D&D character sheets, your GURPS manual, and your bag of non-standard dice.]

You: Gazebos don't eat! They're a (often octagonal) pavilion structure found in gardens and parks!

[I laugh as the gazebo sits on you and makes you take it back.]

THE END

Whatever nightmarish cow-related experiences the designer of this box suffered from as a child were probably pretty horrific. And hilarious, cuz I mean, c'mon... crazy axe wielding vampire cow? HA!

He looks like he's dressed up for a GWAR concert. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's just the guitar player.

Let's score this baby. I have a good feeling about this one.

+1 Ficticious monster
+1 Predatory animal
+1 Weapon
+1 Armor
+2 Fire (torches)
+1 Clouds (there's some evil red lookin' weather out there)
+1 Spikeball (the end of the axe sure looks like a spikeball to me)
and 1, 2, 3, 4... 5! Five uses of the letter X! (Not counting the 'x' in Pixel).

Which gives us a kickass score of 12!

FINAL SCORE: 12

Well done ATI! Your artistic livestock nightmare vision has paid off. I'm sure this baby is flying off the shelves at this very moment.

BFG NVIDIA GeForce 260 GTX OC MAXCORE 55

When some people think of really really baddass videogame elements to put on a box that will really inspire consumers and move units, they think of Emo Superheros. Enrique, the male model above, is the go-to industry guy for GeForce whenever they need a wizard or superhero with tribal tattoos and poorly proportioned hands.

Enrique is all business on the set. Cameras roll and he immediately begins crying his trademark Shiny Magnetic Tears into his tiny, tiny hands - all while looking completely inconsoleable. He's a total Pro.

Given his tribal tat and shredded delts I'm about ready to confirm the rumor that Enrique started his carrer in the film House-Boat Studs #7 - not that I would watch that but I heard it from somebody don't judge me you are reading about fantasty art on computer hardware boxes.

As far as giving this card a place in the pantheon of Video Card Box art - there were some tough calls to be made. I, for one, am extremely partial to shiny tears and I think they are pretty badass. He also has a kickass helmet with a secure looking chinstrap to ensure that it never comes off in combat or while headbanging to "Fallout Boy." A lot of hard work went into rendering those biceps, and I'm currently pushing the Video-Game Box-Art Judging Association to add "rad biceps" to the scoring card. But, for now, here are the results:

+1 Armor (helmet)
+1 Lightning /Water (lightning tears!)
+2 for energy bursts
+1 Clouds
+1 GeForce GTX +1 maXcore 55- has an X and stands for THE MAXIMUM CORE POWER which is clearly 55

OVERALL SCORE: 7

Where this Card really stands out is in it's X-ecution (yep) we're talking so many X's I thought i was watching Sex In the City reruns (yep again)

Although tied with the Asus Baddass D&D Skeletor Knight Warrior of Total Badness, this piece is a mediocre work salvaged only by excessive energy usage and X inflation. I predict not a crowd favorite.